The start of the Leafs’ season is closing in quickly, with just 2 weeks to go before the start of training camp and a month to go before opening night. With the start of a new season comes new expectations for individual players, coaches, how the team plays as a unit and the teams end results.
I have to admit, it’s good material for writing because you can blindly toss out what you expect to see, back it up with the tiniest shred of evidence and it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong. Who do you take me for? Nostradamus?
So, let’s just dive into the predictions, because, while the fun part for me is writing about what I think will happen, the fun part for you is telling me how stupid those predictions sound.
Craig Berube will make the team look better in the playoffs, but their regular season will be worse
Out of the gate Berube will demand a style of play that will be reminiscent of playoff hockey. This will handicap their scoring but improve their overall defense as he attempts to make the forward group improve their play in their own end. Some will see a drop in the regular season point totals and claim that the sky is falling, but at the end of the day they’ll be better prepared for the playoffs. With that said, we’ll see more of the same in the post-season….
Special Teams will continue to be their Achilles heel
I’m a big believer that if you have good to great special teams you’ll be a very tough team to beat. The fact that this team can score at 5v5 the way they do (since Matthews entered the NHL they have placed 5th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 8th and 1st in the league), means to me that they don’t need to place in the top 5 in both the PK and PP categories, however, each unit should be in the top 15 if they truly have Stanley Cup aspirations. It will be their special teams failure that will keep them from making deep playoff runs.
The Leafs have been mostly strong on the powerplay and poor on the penalty kill since Mike Babcock was the coach. Through different coaches and systems the team hasn’t found different results and, unfortunately, the roster itself isn’t built differently. It’s still Brendan Shanahan’s vision on the ice and until they switch that up the results will be the same. Which brings me to an old problem that has resurfaced…..
A lack of toughness will once again be an issue
Go through this roster and you’ll find very little in terms of grit and determination. There are a few players that bring different forms of grit, such as shot blocking (Tanev, McCabe), hitting (Benoit) and fighting (Reaves, Domi), but not nearly enough. After losing Tyler Bertuzzi, Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin this summer, they’re starting to look like the smaller, softer teams of yesteryear. They need some hefty players that can contribute in the top 9 forward unit and another on the blueline…..
Jani Hakanpaa won’t play for the Leafs
This signing was a dud. Once again the Leafs failed to pick up on a players injury status before signing and/or trading for them. Like Matt Murray and John Klingberg before him, Hakanpaa won’t be healthy enough to play out his contract, if he is in fact under contract in the first place, which is still unknown. My expectation is that he’ll be in Toronto early in camp for a medical assessment, before being sent packing. From there the Leafs will attempt to fill his spot with a waiver wire addition, but in Hakanpaa’s place we’ll get a healthy does of Timothy Liljegren……
Timothy Liljegren will have a good year statistically, but the stats and eye test will tell different stories
The old Stat Crowd vs the Eye Test war will continue and Liljegren will be a big part of it this season. A willing shot blocker and an above average puck mover, Liljegren plays a two-way game that Craig Berube will come to admire. He’ll get increased minutes and will benefit from the presence and guidance of Chris Tanev. On the flip side, he’ll still be too soft versus the opposition in front of his own net and his mistakes will be glaring ones at inopportune times. I do find that Liljegren gets better each year, but never seems to take a big leap forward. This is the year that he’ll change that, which is my prediction for another player on the roster….
Mitch Marner will have a great year
Not just on the scoresheet, but all over the ice. Marner has been the focal point of many fans disgruntlement over the past couple of years, but he’ll take away their ability to complain this season. While his regular season will be much the same, his playoffs will be a little grittier and come with far more urgency. After that…..
Mitch Marner will walk for nothing at season’s end
No contract, no trade, no Cup, nothing. The Mitch Marner era will end with him walking away and giving the Leafs and all of their fans the proverbial middle finger. You get what you deserve and you deserve what you get Leafs fans, which is nothing but cap space for Marner, to be spent on middling players that won’t make an impact.. If the cap space was to be used on a bona fide top pairing defender then I may agree that “nothing but cap space” would be a fine return, but instead you’ll get more Kerfoot or Holl types on the roster and the team will go nowhere. A quick look at next season’s UFAs, which include Jakub Chychrun, Ryan Lindgren, Shea Theodore, Aaron Ekblad and a group of past-their-prime veterans leads me to believe that they won’t end up with a top pair defender at the end of the day…..
Their defense still won’t be good enough
I like Chris Tanev as much as the next guy, but this blueline didn’t improve enough this summer to make me get excited. Again, with Edmundson and Lyubushkin leaving and Hakanpaa in question, they’re far too small and still don’t have the star power that you’d prefer to see on a contender. They need depth and help there, but elsewhere as well…..
Centre will be major problem
As the cap has been going up, the star forwards have been taking it all for themselves. Raises to Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly over the past couple of seasons have meant continued sacrifice of depth. The Leafs don’t have a true 3C at the moment and didn’t even attempt to try to fill that spot. Maybe they’re hoping that Minten can step up and maybe he can. If he doesn’t they are getting next to no offense from the middle in their bottom 6. Also, if Marner does return next season, he’ll take a chunk of the next rise to the cap and while John Tavares will take a pay cut……
John Tavares has a bounce back year, signs extension that you’ll hate
Signing Chris Tanev through to the age of 40 (he’ll actually be 41 when the contract expires) set a precedent for John Tavares. Here, with the Leafs, you can get term, a high caphit and full trade protection, all you have to do is ask. Tavares will be the same age as Tanev when he signs his next contract (34) and he’ll do it after another solid year statistically, where he’ll return to producing at almost a point-per-game pace. 5-6 years at 8 million per season sound about right? You hate it? Yeah, I said you would, just like you’ll hate the fact that…..
Nicholas Robertson will be a Leaf this season
I saw somebody suggest trying to trade Robertson for Kaeden Korczak and the Leafs would be foolish not to jump at the opportunity if it arises. Korczak was taken 12 spots ahead of Robertson in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, which means they’re the same age and both are waiver eligible this season. Korczak has been mostly blocked from entering the NHL due to a Knights team that has been deep on the blueline since they drafted him, so he only has 37 NHL games under his belt, as compared to Robertson’s 87, but they’ve been positive games. The 6’4″ 200lb RD is ready to make the full time jump to the NHL, while the Knights could use some more offense, in theory. This match-made-in-heaven deal won’t come to fruition though. Robertson will hold out during camp, will eventually sign, will start the year slowly because he didn’t get any pre-season games in and will become even more disgruntled moving forward. You did it to yourself, Nick, just like Treliving did……
It’s been a minute, but the fans will start talking about moving bad contracts again
Now, Leafs Nation has been asking for contracts to be moved over the years, but they’re not bad contracts. Marner, Tavares and Nylander are the #1 culprits, but their contracts weren’t bad, there were just too many big money deals given to the forward unit. Things are about to change. Treliving just signed Chris Tanev and OEL to deals that have too much term. Considering Treliving did this in Calgary as well, nobody should be surprised. OEL, especially, will be in everybody’s mock trades by the 2025 NHL Entry draft, but he won’t be alone…..
David Kampf will take another step back
With a $2.4M caphit and having just produced 19pts, Kampf isn’t exactly on a sweetheart deal. He’s a good penalty killer, that’s true, but there are others in the NHL that can do that job for less. However, during this season, even Kampf’s penalty killing will come into question. He’ll be the first pure salary dump since Patrick Marleau. The regression of Kampf, combined with my previous prediction of their centre group being a major problem, will really hurt the team as a whole. So, while the kids will be alright…..
Knies and Cowan will have very good years
By this I mean that Knies will take another leap forward, possibly even surpassing the 50pt mark and becoming more comfortable driving the net and battling in the tough areas of the ice. Cowan, while being less productive and having some up’s and down’s, will still be a positive overall and will show that he belongs in the NHL. This simply won’t be enough though…..
The Leafs will still come up far too short in the playoffs
Another 1st round exit is on the horizon. The only question is who will they lose to in game 7 come spring?